Traveling with Sex Toys this Holiday Season?

Have you ever traveled with your sex toys and carried them aboard an airplane? With tightened airport security, more and more people are getting pulled out of line and searched. But should this restrict your vacation of sexual adventures? Eric Amaranth, sex coach extraordinaire, believes in adding novelty in your bedroom or hotel room. Eric is here with a humorous tale about his travel misadventures with his sex toys!

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My girlfriend and I went to a wedding this past weekend and decided to bring four of our favorite sex toys with us. Two were vibrators shaped innocuously, one was a dildo with an obvious phallic shape, and the fourth was a glass design that defies brief description. Which is why it’s pictured at right. Read on for the humor and adventure.

We left from Newark International Airport, then made our way through security manned and womaned, as always, by the intrepid TSA officers. All the toys were packed in my luggage. The officer at the viewing screen stopped the line and brought other officers over to get their opinions. I watched with a straight face while my girlfriend giggled quietly after having made it through their scrutiny. Suddenly the principle viewing agent said words to the effect of, “I don’t believe this. Bag check!”

I smiled inside, but kept a disinterested look on my face. They asked me whose bag it was and I raised my hand. They first ran the diagnostic wipes over the handles and inside surfaces, then fed them into a machine. Nothing went off. Next step was the visual exam.

The male officer rifled through my clothes. The toys were at the bottom of the suitcase. He stopped and stared for half a second, then put my things back on top and gestured with his thumb that I could be on my way. My girlfriend was laughing harder by the time I joined her, but quietly. Oh yes, the officer had gloves on throughout the check.


The second run-in was in the return at a southern city’s small airport. Once again, I took the toys in my bag. Said bag went through the x-ray machine and again, the line was stopped. A middle aged woman with vintage spectacles peered at the screen for much a few seconds, I’d estimate four. She didn’t call for viewing assistance, but did request a bag check and said out loud to the officer snapping on nitrile gloves, “It looks like an art piece!”



My girlfriend had once again already made it through and I looked over at her with her hand on her mouth covering up the giggles. The TSA guy ID’ed me as the owner of the bag and did the wipe down, as before, then asked me where the object was that they were concerned about.

I figured it was the glass toy, because the other three would not lend themselves to an art piece characterization. The phallus… the most obvious attention-grabber, never entered the discussion. The agent brought out the figure as seen above, reached over for a collection pan that you’d put jewelry and loose change in, then walked off with my art piece. They asked me what it was. I said art piece, which is technically true.

I heard my girlfriend choking back her guffaws. She’d lost it. I kept my poker face on and waited. They brought it back after a minute, I took it, and they said I was free to travel. Put it back in, got my things, put my belt and shoes back on, and joined my girlfriend.

She laughed about that for the next three minutes. I smiled big and wondered why they were afraid of my toy and realized the spiral going up the “shaft” may have looked like a wire. Anyway, the moral of the story is to keep a straight face, know you have a right to your hot sex toys in your bag, and enjoy the trip because many people’s best sex is on vacations due to the privacy and change of scenery.

Cross posted with permission from Eric Amaranth's blog here.

Eric Amaranth is a sex life coach, working in NYC and globally via video conference, who specializes in women’s and men’s sexuality, basic to advanced sex skills, and high-end sex education. Individuals and couples are guided toward the relationship, intimacy, and sexual enjoyment goals they desire most.

Amaranth believes that for the majority of people, appreciation of ourselves and our romantic partners is one of the best sustainable resources we have to continuously renew attraction, maintain respect, and stay in love with our partners. This bedrock of deep appreciation is founded and reinforced by the combination of loving relationship skills with breathtaking sexual skills. Follow him on Twitter @Eric_Amaranth.